2011 Code for America Annual Report

A NEW KIND OF PUBLIC SERVICE 2011 Annual Report

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Code for America is a new kind of public service that helps cities innovate.

This was our first year.

Thank you for making it happen.

Here’s what we did...

WELCOME year overview

8 App Catalog: What the Fellows Built 10 Build Locally, Spread Nationally: The Story of Reuse 12 The 2011 Fellows

city partnerships City of Boston City of Philadelphia City of Seattle

special projects 22 24

Civic Commons 2011 Summit

in detail

26 Who We Are: Supporters, Advisors, and Staff 28 Financial Breakdown 30 Looking Ahead to 2012

Thanks to Cisco Systems for providing our office space.

Cover Image Credit: Jane Kelly and Sam Silver. Produced for Urban Omnibus

16 18 20

our office

A Note FROM OUR FOUNDER Not that long ago, Code for America was just an idea. We had the notion that the same talent, passion, and skills that have connected us and made our lives easier through Web and mobile technologies could also reconnect us to the institution designed to benefit us all: government. And in reconnecting us, we could help government gain some of the efficiencies the Internet has brought to other sectors in the past decade. To do that, we called on an industry and a community to stand up and serve their country. We were delighted that so many heeded the call.

In January 2011, Code for America transitioned from an idea to a grand experiment that produced remarkable outcomes. The staff we partnered with in our three cities and the fellows who worked with them are truly leaders in a movement. They built software applications, of course, but they did so much more than that. They showed what’s possible, changed perceptions, broke down barriers, and built interfaces to government that are simple, beautiful, and easy to use. Most importantly, they’ve planted the flag for a movement that puts the public sector on the same innovation curve as the rest of society, and rebuilds trust between government and its citizens.

This grand experiment involved 19 fellows, five staff members, three city governments, dozens of mentors and supporters, more than thirty institutional, individual, and corporate funders, and tens of thousands of regular citizens cheering from the sidelines. Now that the first class of fellows has graduated, their projects have transitioned to the city staff who will carry them forward, and our proudest accomplishments — our lessons learned – have been documented, analyzed, and applied to the plans for next year, we’d like to share the following account of our first year.

We’re now much more than an idea. We’ve grown into an organization and articulated a mission and a vision for the future.

We are well on our way to establishing a repeatable process that delivers the change we represent. Most importantly, we are a network of people and institutions who believe this vision is within reach. We offer this report with a huge thanks to everyone who believed in us and made this year possible.

Jennifer Pahlka Founder & Executive Director

The Year

By The Numbers Engagement • 21 civic apps created • 390 civic leaders engaged • 140 city partners involved TRANSPARENCY • 1 data portals created • 67 datasets opened • 25 datasets created • 70 APIs/API tools created CODE • 134 public projects • 12828 code commits • 546 community members

From Code for America we “ thought we’d just get some apps for our constituents, but we got so much more: new relationships in city hall, new connections to the community, a platform for further innovation, and yes, even some great applications.”

Nigel jacob New Urban Mechanics City of BOSTON

<!-- begin app catalog --> // it’s not just about the apps. // but the apps do matter. // and they show what’s possible. //Adopt-a-Hydrant

//Change By Us

//CityGroups

In the midst of winter snowstorms, buried hydrants cause dangerous delays in the ability of fire fighters to respond to fire emergencies. To check and clear off the thousands of hydrants across the city, Adopt-a-Hydrant lets governments turn to the community. This map-based web app allows individuals, small businesses, and community organizations to volunteer to be responsible for shoveling out specific hydrants.

Change By Us both crowdsources ideas for improving our cities and gives residents tools to bring those ideas to life. As a marketplace for community projects it enables residents to find local initiatives that matter to them and lets them join in the effort to improve their community. Change By Us also provides a simple kit of web-based tools that make it easy to become a local organizer and bring people together to improve their community.

In cities across the country, there is amazing work being done by community organizers to take on community problems. CityGroups helps publicize these organizations through a collaborative public directory for finding and recommending groups working to make the city better. In doing so, it opens up this valuable data, enabling connections within the community and support from the local government. Since launch, CityGroups has been deployed in four cities.

http://adoptahydrant.org

http://changeby.us

http://citygroups.org

//ClassTalk

//CouncilMatic

//DataCouch

ClassTalk empowers teachers to communicate instantly with their classes through SMS and email, keeping school subjects and class deadlines at the top of a student’s mind. Teachers can send messages to an entire class instantly or schedule one to be sent at a future time, and students can reply, providing instant, lowbarrier access to their teacher even after class is dismissed. ClassTalk brings out-of-school communication to the devices teachers and students already use everyday.

Keeping up with your city council can at times be difficult with all of the issues addressed and bills proposed, and for many, only a fraction of the activity is relevant to them — either because of topic or location. CouncilMatic makes accessing Philadelphia legislative data as easy as checking your email or reading a blog.

DataCouch uses the CouchDB database to build a tool that allows data in spreadsheets to be uploaded and converted to an API for use by other developers. Developers can then create a copy, clean, or add to the data — in turn, making that new dataset available. This removes the major hurdle to data sharing, and allows data to be made immediately available even if it is not in a traditionally web-friendly format.

http://councilmatic.org

http://datacouch.com http://classtalk.org

//DataWorks:Boston

//DiscoverBPS

//Iconathon

DataWorks is part app catalog, part ideation platform, and part project management tool; but at its core, it is a network of communitymembers and developers — connecting those with a concept (anyone) with those who have the know-how to turn concept into a creation (developer). The platform not only enables collaboration and project development, but also features completed apps, built in Boston for Boston.

Distributing many students across the city – while taking into account factors like walkability, sibling attendance, and personal preference – is a complicated task and creates a process that can seem incomprehensible to parents. By leveraging technology — interactive maps, user-generated reviews, and structured data — we can make the process easier, and we can help parents get the information they need when making an important decision: which school is right for my child?

With our evolving cities and lifestyles come the need for new symbols to describe our physical environment. To generate these new symbols CfA fellows held six events for hundreds of people around the country — Iconathons — where designers gathered to create (or recreate) icons that represent key aspects of cities and civic life.

http://buildingboston.org http://discoverbps.org

http://iconathon.org

//JobOps

//Lunch Roulette

Veterans exit the military without the tools they need to compete in the modern job search process. Most services don’t provide specialized information for jobs catering to veterans. Veterans deserve a better way of starting their post-military career. JobOps, built in partnership with the White House, is a light-weight tool to integrate online career building services and help veterans find jobs.

As organizations grow, it’s difficult for coworkers to meet new people and break out of their day-to-day bubble. Lunch Roulette brings social networking into the office. The application randomly pairs up two people for a lunch date, and emails them the pairing in the morning — over time, working to match as many people up as possible. It’s an easy way to make lunchtime more interesting and fun. It’s currently being used by more than 20 organizations.

http://c4a.me/rJNKqv

http://c4a.me/tOEcdO

//Open311 Dashboard Over the past decade large cities have implemented 311 systems to handle non-emergency service requests such as fixing a pothole. The Open311 API allows web applications to seamlessly interact with the 311 system and it’s deluge of data. The Open311 dashboard provides a clean and interactive dashboard that will help track response times, identify service request trends, and give city officials data about the efficiency of various city services. http://open311.org

//Open211

//Public Art App

//PHL API

Social service providers spend as much time making referrals to other providers as they do helping clients directly. The Open211 Redirectory is a crowd-sourced list of social service resources that keeps service providers up-to-date on where clients can find the help they need. Plus, its SMS interface enables individuals to search for resources themselves.

Open211 was featured by the White House as an “open data Champion of Change.”

Conceived in Philadelphia, a city renowned for its murals, the Public Art App merges public datasets that describe public art with usersubmitted information to create an interactive public art map for any city. The Public Art app pulls information about the location, artist, and history of public art and displays it in a mobile, multi-platform web app — giving people access to the art as well as its context and meaning.

Cities are teeming with data for developers to leverage in their applications. Getting that data into an app, however, often requires significant effort on the developers part. For Philadelphia, our fellows built PHL API, which makes it easier to access dozens of city datasets on topics as diverse as art, economic indicators and political boundaries. Developers looking to incorporate this data in their own applications now have a simple way to pull it off the web in real time.

http://open211.org

http://publicartapp.mobi http://phlapi.com

//ReRoute.it

//Septa.mobi

//SnapFresh

ReRoute.it is a mobile application that helps people make informed transportation chioces.

The app does so by turning the regular transit app on its head — instead of choosing the mode of transportation first, ReRoute.it lets you compare every option with regard to time, cost, health, and global warming impact. Is a bike as fast as the bus but a quarter the cost?

Info like that helps people understand transportation choices as something that impacts us in many ways.

Thanks to the use of GPS on most city buses, cities now have access to real-time data on bus locations and even estimated time of arrival.

This information is useful not just to transit administrators, but citizens as well, wondering when the next bus will arrive. Septa.mobi is a real-time mobile bus tracking application for Philadelphia residents that gives them up-tothe-minute information on when buses will arrive at any stop.

The Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — better know as food stamps — helps low income people put food on the table. Unfortunately, information about which retailers accept food stamps is hard to find. SnapFresh allows users to easily find that information by texting an address to the SnapFresh phone number. Information about the five closest quality food stores is instantly returned via text. SnapFresh uses USDA data and works nationwide.

http://reroute.it

//SolarCity Solar City is a web application that uses ESRI mapping software to calculate solar potential for rooftops. With this tool, basic calculations can demonstrate both the average amount of sunlight that is available and the cost saving opportunities of a switch to solar power. Any city with the necessary geodata can use the app to help consumers understand the viability and potential benefits of solar energy. http://solar-1.apphb.com

http://septa.mobi http://snapfresh.org

//Where’s My School Bus Last winter, during a major snowstorm, Boston public schools received more than 3,000 calls in a week from concerned parents wondering when their child’s delayed school bus would arrive. Where’s My School Bus lets parents receive location information through a mobile app so they can track their child’s bus in real time, freeing up city call-center resources. http://schoolbus.bostonpublicschools.org

//Technofinder Cities are actively trying to provide Internet access to the underserved by providing tech centers located throughout the city. Using Technofinder, residents can simply call a toll-free number and input their location to be given a listing, hours, and directions to the tech centers closest to them. Built on top of Chicago’s open data, the app can be deployed in any city with the necessary public data. http://techfind.me

<!-- end -->

ANNUALREPORT

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BUILD LOCALLY.

SPREAD NATIONALLY. While each city has its own character and personality, at their core there are common needs, which can be addressed with shared and reusable solutions. In this age of shrinking budgets and rising needs, each city acting in isolation is no longer sustainable, which is why Code for America’s applications are open source and available to any city who wants to use them, free of charge.

Several Code for America applications are already being picked up by other cities and reused for the public good. A few of them include:

PUBLIC ART APP. 4 CITIES + 3 PLATFORMS. Initially developed in Philadelphia, the Public Art App makes it easy and fun to explore the public art in your city. It’s now in use in four cities (Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle, and San Francisco) and available on mobile, Foursquare, and Twitter.

CITYGROUPS. 3 CITIES + 2 VARIATIONS. Built to help map community groups in Seattle, CityGroups caught on across the country. The app has launched in Boston and Philadelphia as well, and was also redeployed in Seattle to support Blockwatch Captains.

ADOPT-A-HYDRANT. 4 CITIES + 4 USES. Adopt-a-Hydrant enables citizens to support civic infrastructure. Customizing it for any object is as simple as changing one word.

That’s how Chicago, Honolulu, and Buenos Aires are now able to reuse it for assets ranging from snowplows to storm sirens.

OPEN PLATFORMS Open311 is a platform, which enables reuse, which Civic Commons is building.

SEE PAGE022

OPEN311 DashBOARD [beta] The Open311 Dashboard is an attempt to help make sense of 311 data. Soon, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll allow any city on the Open311 platform to use it anywhere, for free.

ANNA BLOOM

JEREMY CANFIELD

MICHAEL EVANS

MICHELLE KOETH

PETE FECTEAU

MJUMBE POE

RYAN RESELLA

MATT LEWIS

KARLA MACEDO

JOEL MAHONEY

JOHN MERTENS

ERIK MICHAELS-OBER

MAX OGDEN

AARON OGLE

ALAN PALAZZOLO

TALIN SALWAY

CHACHA SIKES

SCOTT SILVERMAN

TYLER STALDER

2011 fellows Code for America exists because of the courageous, talented, and inspiring individuals who are willing to leave their careers, their communities, and sometimes even their families to give a year of service, using their skills to make our governments work better. The 2011 fellows were the inaugural class and they, as CfA Advisor Clay Johnson said at our Summit, “were the first through the wall,” blazing the path for future fellows and proving that this idea held great potential.

At the end of the year, we asked everyone: “Knowing what you know now, would you do it again?” And they all said yes.

“CfA didn’t answer any questions for me about what I want to be when I grow up, but it marked me indelibly and changed what I think it means to be a citizen...

I don’t think I’ll ever love a job as Much As I loved this one.”

- Jeremy Canfield 2011 cFA Fellow

ANNUALREPORT

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A LOOK INTO WHAT IT’s LIKE TO CODE FOR AMERICA When the inaugural class of fellows walked into the Code for America office on their first day, they encountered something of a blank slate. As the first class, there was no established culture or way of doing things. Throughout the year, however, a strong culture emerged. Here’s a rundown of some of the phrases you would have heard regularly if you dropped by Code for America: Coder Sounds One day a few fellows were working late into the night, and Talin Salway pushed a bug fix to our code repository. A few seconds later, another fellow’s iPhone beeped. They had set up a personal service to notify them whenever a change was made. Then another fellow called out, “Hey, could we make those speakers scream out a hawk sound with every commit?”

Coder Sounds was born. Each fellow has a unique sound that plays whenever he or she commits code, so walking through the Code for America office, you may hear a crow call or a snippet of thumping base. It’s the sound of coding for America.

LuNCH ROULETTE A couple of months into the fellowship, Joel Mahoney realized that he ended up eating lunch with the same couple of people everyday. But he figured that part of the fellowship experience is get to know a diverse group of people, so naturally, he built an app to help make that happen. “Lunch Roullete” randomly pairs up two people in the office (fellows and staff) for lunch each day.

Communal Lunch The family that cooks together, codes together. We knew that Y Combinator’s group dinners aren’t fancy, catered meals but rather come from a dozen or so crock pots—simple, easy, and fun. We figured we could the same, so every Wednesday a few team members get together to cook a simple lunch for the whole organization. Sharing that weekly meal as a group has been bonding money can’t buy.

OTHERS (YOU’LL JUST HAVE TO ASK) “FRIDAY,” LoVE BOMBS, Twinkling, Snack of the week, the uniform, chicken, donkey, game night, honey badgers

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The Boston project

MAYOR MENINO BOSTON FELLOWS: Erik, Karla, Joel, Scott, Max, Ryan, Talin LOCATION: Boston City Hall CITY PARTNERS: Patricia Boyle-McKenna, Dana Conroy, Melissa Dodd, Nigel Jacob, Bill Oates, Chris Osgood

The first day in Boston, our fellows expected to dive in with our city partners and start interviewing teachers, administrators, and students for our education-focused project. Turns out, they spent that day in the Mayor’s Response Center, answering calls during one of the largest snowstorms in the city’s history. The city was in crisis, so they rolled up their sleeves to help.

Throughout the year, in fact, the Boston team had to adapt to changing environments. Initially, we had hoped the fellows would be able to create a datahub for all of the public schools’ student information, enabling developers to build apps for education. But when the fellows went in and tried to get the data, they found that it was often off limits, unusable, or inaccessible.

Faced with these challenges, the team decided to take a different approach: instead of a single focus on a one-stop datahub, they employed a more agile, broad, and experimental strategy.

First, they focused on apps they could turnaround quickly that demonstrated the value of opening data (Where’s My School Bus). Second, they used a strategy of having students, teachers, and administrators use a private, third-party system (ClassTalk & DiscoverBPS). And finally, the fellows created tools to facilitate the sharing of any kind of civic data in a way that collaboratively engaged the community (DataWorks & DataCouch).

The Boston project proved to us that instead of focusing on one big, defined project, our fellows were more successful when they were free to experiment.

featured app

During February, the fellows talked with Boston’s mayor.

AN URBAN MECHANIC

HELPING PARENTS CHOOSE SCHOOLS

DISCOVERBPS.oRG A confusing, paper-based system frustrated Boston parents trying to understand their school options. By leveraging interactive maps, user-generated reviews, and structured data, DiscoverBPS helps parents understand what schools their child is eligible to attend and which school is right for them.

FELLOWS: Joel, Karla, Talin DEMO LINK: http://www.discoverbps.org CODE REPO: http://c4a.me/setJsU

the stats

0017

APPS CREATED: 8

“IT’S VITAL FOR THE CITY TO CREATE A BETTER INTERFACE BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPERS...

[CODE FOR AMERICA’S] MODEL — TECH-SAVVY DEVELOPERS RESPONDING DIRECTLY TO PUBLIC NEEDS — SHOULD BE THE NORM...

THERE’S A PRECEDENT.”

- BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL, 3/4/2011

LOCAL PARTNERS: 50

EVENTS HOSTED: 2

EVENTS ATTENDED: 24

DATASETS LIBERATED:

24

CODE COMMITS:

2500

bonus PROJECT:

PUBLIC DOMAIN ICONS

Fellows Karla Macedo and Chach Sikes realized that the icons and images they needed for their apps were probably needed by others around the country, so they hosted a series of collaborative design events to develop more than 40 new civic icons for the public domain. Check it out:

iconathon.org

PRESS HITS: 4

INTERVIEWS:

120

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The PHILadelphia project

MAKING NOISE

The fellows hosted a number of public events to get the word out about civic coding; top left, the fellows with Mayor Nutter.

PHILLY FELLOWS: Aaron, John, Matt, Mjumbe, Michael, Pete, Tyler LOCATION: University of the Arts CITY PARTNERS: Andrew Buss, Alan Frank, Jeff Friedman, Desiree Peterkin-Bell

As cities face shrinking budgets and growing demands, staff are looking for new ways to get things done. The City of Philadelphia partnered with Code for America to see how it could empower its neighborhoods and civic leaders to solve local problems. The project began with lots of ideas, ranging from community calendars to social networks, but Code for America fellows are trained to ask questions first, code later. So throughout the year the Philly team conducted extensive, on-the-ground research into how Philadelphia’s neighborhoods work and how they could work better with City Hall. They experimented with various tools, prototyping solutions and testing them with users. They concluded that the city needed tools to help civic leaders draw attention to their projects and also work with each other to pool resources.

Enter Change By Us (CBU). Created by design firm Local Projects and the national non-profit CEOs for Cities, CBU is a tool that enables citizens to share ideas and collaborate on projects for city improvement—exactly what was needed. So instead of reinventing the wheel, we partnered with Local Projects to both deploy CBU in Philly and to open source the application, so that any city can reuse the software freely. Throughout the year, the fellows also built various other apps for transportation (ReRoute. it) and public art (MuralApp).

Mayor Michael Nutter and his team have been vocal advocates of the program, and applied for a second year so that this work on civic engagement can continue.

featured app

ENABLING BETTER TRANSPORTATION CHOICES

REROUTE.IT Cities need residents to make healthier, greener, and costeffective transportation choices, however, we don’t always understand the consequences of the choices we make.

Reroute.it gives you a side-by-side comparison of various transportation options and their impacts.

FELLOWS: Aaron, Pete, Talin DEMO LINK: http://www.rereoute.it CODE REPO: http://c4a.me/tSbHKu

the the stats stats

0019

apps created: 7

“HAVING THE CODE FOR AMERICA FELLOWS IN PHILADELPHIA, AND HAVING THEM ESSENTIALLY KICK START CIVIC CODING USING CITY DATA, HAS ACCELERATED THE AWARENESS OF WHAT IS POSSIBLE...I CALL IT ‘THE CFA EFFECT.’ IT WAS PRETTY COOL TO SEE FIRST HAND.”

- MARK HEADD CIVIC HACKER VOXEO

LOCAL Partners:

60

events hosted: 4

events attended: 25

datasets Liberated:

40

CODE commits:

3000

curating civic SPACE: PUBLICARTAPP.MOBI

Throughout your city, there are murals on the buildings, statues in the parks, installations on the street. This is public art.

Fellows John Mertens and Anna Bloom collaborated on the Public Art App, an app that makes it easier and fun to find those works, and enables citizens to submit new pieces.

Now available in four cities.

press hits: 6

interviews:

160

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The SEATTLE project

COMING TOGETHER SEATTLE FELLOWS: Alan, Anna, Chach LOCATION: DataCamp @ Socrata CITY PARTNERS: Bruce Blood, Amy Hirotaka, Julie O’Brien, Bill Schrier

Seattle has strong neighborhood identity and a rich network of local leaders and grassroots initiatives. As in Philadelphia, our city partners in Seattle wanted the fellows to support these civically active residents and give them the tools to have a greater positive impact on their neighborhoods.

Through a series of interviews with hundreds of civic leaders, the fellows compiled a report detailing how community groups leverage technology. They also brought together those groups with members of Seattle’s vibrant tech community in a series of events to boost interest in civic coding. From their research, the fellows found one particular unaddressed problem for community groups: how to find those small, neighborhood-level groups and individual leaders who often have the most relevance but the least visibility. So the team built a tool called CityGroups that showcases this information, and they populated the database.

After just a few months, there are already over 900 groups of all kinds that have been listed—which now constitute a resource for the city’s engagement activities.

We didn’t achieve all our goals in Seattle. The program’s focus on reuse drove us to roll out Change By Us here, but in the end it didn’t meet the needs of the city partners in Seattle and we shuttered that experiment. As a program, we learned some hard lessons here but also some very productive ones. CfA’s work with Seattle will continue as the city adopts other apps from the 2011 program and participates in Civic Commons.

During February, the fellows worked handin-hand with city hall.

Right, the fellows meet with Mayor McGinn.

featured app

CONNECTING LOCAL COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS

CITYGROUPS CityGroups is a searchable, collaborative public directory which allows community organizers and residents to find community groups so that they can work together. It has been deployed in four cities already, and can feature either general groups or specific lists (e.g. Seattle’s Block Watch Captains).

FELLOW: Chach DEMO LINK: http://www.citygroups.org CODE REPO: http://c4a.me/tZFVd3

the the stats stats

0021

apps created: 4

“HAVING THE CAPACITY TO REALLY BRING GOVERNMENT TOOLS AND WEB TOOLS AND SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS...

CAN ONLY MAKE US STRONGER AND CAN ONLY GIVE US THE TOOLS TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS. SO, I AM EXTRAORDINARILY EXCITED ABOUT THIS.”

- MIKE MCGINN MAYOR CITY OF SEATTLE

LOCAL Partners:

40

events hosted: 2

events attended: 24

datasets Liberated:

3

CODE commits:

1500

a national EVENT

DATACAMPS

In all of the 2011 CfA cities, the fellows hosted “DataCamps” in the month of February. At the events, city officials worked hand-in-hand with coders, designers, urbanists, and community leaders to open up civic datasets and then create apps ontop of that data; for that day they were...

...building the city together.

press hits: 9

interviews:

110

“CIVIC COMMONS’ WORK COULD SAVE TAXPAYERS HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.” -ANDREW HOPPIN FORMER CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER NEW YORK SENATE

CIVIC COMMONS “How does government become an open platform that allows people inside and outside government to innovate?” - Tim O’Reilly, Open Government The Civic Commons project works to answer this question, working directly with leaders in government technology around the country to institutionalize the practices that make government work as a platform. The project focuses on three main activities: •

•

•

Creating a Marketplace for civic technology (see right), where both cities and entrepreneurs can see what’s working where, and where there are opportunities for new applications and collaborations.

• 170+ apps listed, 40+ cities contributing Evangelizing Open Platforms to cities and vendors — such as Open311, the international, open standard for citizen reporting. These platforms enable open innovation and incentivize collaboration and reuse.

• 35+ cities and 10+ vendors on Open311 (Open311.org), 20+ apps built Institutionalizing Openness inside governments. By engaging directly with governments, open sourcing existing applications, and by creating public resources (such as the Civic Commons Wiki and Legal Guide), we’re scaling our impact through actionable information.

• 10 apps opensourced, 287 active users of the Wiki

Civic Commons is a project in partnership with OpenPlans.

THE CIVIC COMMONS MARKETPLACE

CIVIC COMMONS FELLOWS: Jeremy, Michelle PARTNER: OpenPlans MORE: marketplace.civiccommons.org CIVIC COMMONS STAFF: Nick Grossman, Philip Ashlock, Karl Fogel Many government IT spending decisions are made in isolation, without an understanding of what’s available and unaware of what has worked for other entities with similar needs. Government buyers need visibility into the marketplace and the ability to communicate with their peers and, ultimately, to pool resources and collaborate on solutions. The Civic Commons Marketplace — currently in beta — creates a level playing field for technologies and approaches that provide real impact, but aren’t necessarily represented in standard procurement processes. The Marketplace fosters an engaged, informed community of IT decision makers, organizations, and vendors in order to promote open innovation.

THE NEED FOR CHANGE: GROWING GOV IT COSTS

2010 : $140 Billion

Over the past two decades, technology costs in the private sector have dropped dramatically, enabled by the cloud and by lightweight, low-risk models of innovation. But in the public sector, technology costs have increased. By enabling transparency in the market, collaboration and reuse, Civic Commons can help put government IT back on the innovation curve.

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THE INAUGURAL

2011 CFA SUMMIT

WHEN: October 13-14, 2011 LOCATION: SPUR - San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association MORE: cfasummit.org

towards a common vision Code for America’s work is far more powerful in the context of the civic leaders, developers, philanthropists and others who share and shape our vision. To bring these diverse groups of people together to connect and explore how we each contribute to CfA’s larger mission, we held the first Code for America Summit this fall.

The core of the event was a candid conversation about where we are collectively (including everyone who is working towards these goals), where we want to go, and how we will get there.

The overarching themes identified were: • • • •

Citizen participation Data-driven decision-making Sharing and reuse Government as a platform

THE STATE OF INNOVATION IN CIVIC TECHNOLOGY From data feedback loops that optimize parking in San Francisco to realtime mapping of asthma attacks in Louisville, the Summit presented actual initiatives working in cities today, some from Code for America and many from other innovators inside (and a few outside) city government.

After the short project presentations, the speakers discussed their common strategies and challenges, and then turned it over to the audience.

The audience then broke into small discussion groups to share their own experiences and brainstorm how to take these ideas further.

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SHARED VISION Representatives from 20 cities came together to collaborate on a shared vision for CfA. Author Steven Johnson gave the keynote (below).

STRENGTHENING TIES

EXCELLENT FEEDBACK

Until recently, each individual driving for change in his or her city has been going it relatively alone. One of the goals for the Summit was to help each of these change agents understand this community as part of their support network, where they go to be reminded that new approaches are not only possible, but they’re working in communities around the country.

Evaluation feedback confirmed the event was a resounding success: 96 percent of respondents reported their experience at the Summit as “Excellent” or “Very Good”, 94 percent agreed the mix of attendees was “good”, 95 percent said they “gained a strengthened partnership with CfA from the event”, and 100 percent reported a full understating of CfA’s vision.

Many attendees described the event as “the best conference they had ever attended.”

PRACTICING WHAT WE PREACH A core value of this movement is engagement: engaging hackers in city IT, engaging citizens in decision-making, placemaking, and improving their neighborhoods, and engaging each other around the strategies and tactics that work.

The program was designed not to just lecture, but to engage everyone who attended. Much of the agenda was dedicated to reflection and brainstorming in small groups, and sharing the outcomes of these discussions.

The result was a connected, engaged group of people excited about a common mission.

THE START OF A CONVERSATION The Summit was a rare opportunity for us to bring together all of our partners—cities, fellows, and foundations—into one room for a face-to-face conversation, but after the event, the conversation continued online through our discussion group. Going forward we expect the momentum we built at the Summit to be the foundation for our work in our cities—current and future—throughout the country.

“...TRULY A GREAT EVENT — ONE OF THE BEST AND MOST USEFUL I HAVE BEEN TO IN A LONG WHILE.” -ANDREW NICKLIN CITY OF NEW YORK

// WHO WE ARE Major donors Alfred P Sloan Foundation

Mike and Monica Harrington

Microsoft

Case Foundation

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Nike

John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Omidyar Network

Craigslist Stephen Elop EMC ESRI Bob Glushko and Pam Samuelson Google

Clay Johnson Louis and Anne Abrons Foundation Paul Maritz

O’Reilly Foundation Rockefeller Foundation Shel Kaphan Foundation Sunlight Foundation Union Square Ventures

Note: Donations received in 2011 in support of the 2012-2013 Code for America programs will be listed in the 2012 Annual Report.

DONORS // Alcatel-Lucent // Asha Aravindakshan // Christian Azer // Laura Baldwin // Lane Becker // James Bentley // Regina Blaber // John Bledsoe // Ron Bouganim // Sid Burgess // Daniel Burka // Hailey Brewer // John Cary // Adam Chromicz // Michelle Crawford // Wayne Colvin// Daniel Cowles // Sara Crouse // Kevin Curry // Adam Davis // Derek Dukes // Oren Falkowitz // Heide Felton // Max Fram-Schwartz // Edward Fries // Thomas Frisina // Stephen Gillett // Ben Gongleton // Andrew Greenhill // Ro Gurindar // Monica Guzman // Anita Hart // David Hornik // Brian Hsi // Vanessa Hurst // Mark Jones // Justin Kuykendall // Leonard Lin // Jerry Long // Erik Martin // Lesley Molecke // John Musser // Michael Nelson // Jennifer Pahlka (In honor of the 2011 fellows) // William Pahlka // Alex Polvi // Arena Reed // Mamie Rheingold // Ted Rheingold // Roger Roelofs // Robert Saul // Takaaki Shinagawa // Clay Shirky // Chris Shultz // Peter Skomoroch // Gurindar Sohi // Chase Southard // Cynthia Stamstad // Paige Taylor // Jesse Toothman // Matt Tucker // Will Turnage // Benjamin van der Veen // Jay Walsh // Anthony Wasserman // Corey Weinstein //

IN-kind DONORS // Blue State Digital // Bolt Peters // Cisco Systems // Cooper // Dropbox // Hot Studio // LinkedIn // O’Reilly Media // Pivotal Labs // PROVOC // Safari Books Online // Stamen Design // Wilson Sonsini //

BOARD OF DIRECTORs

BOARD OF Advisors

Andrew Greenhill City of Tucson John Lilly GreyLock Partners Leonard Lin Lensley Andrew McLaughlin Tumblr Jennifer Pahlka Code for America Monica Harrington (Emeritus) Tim O’Reilly O’Reilly Media (Emeritus)

Deb Bryant Deborah Bryant & Associates Ben Cerveny Stamen Design Peter Corbett iStrategyLabs Kevin Curry Bridgeborn, Inc Clay Johnson Author, The Information Diet Jascha Franklin-Hodge Blue State Digital Adam Greenfield Urbanscale

team mentors

INDIVIDUAL mentors

Ron Bouganim Team Boston Wendy Owen Teams Philadelphia and Seattle

Ben Berkowitz SeeClickFix Stewart Brand Long Now Foundation Danese Cooper Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Heather Champ Fertile Medium Emily Chang Ideacodes Joe Edelman GroundCrew Denise Gershbein Frog Design Hilary Hoeber IDEO Andrew McLaughlin Tumblr

Nick Grossman Civic Commons Eugene Eric Kim Groupaya Michal Migurski Stamen Design Andrew Rasiej Personal Democracy Forum Clay Shirky New York University Tom Steinberg mySociety

Michal Migurski Stamen Design Jay Nath City of San Francisco Tim O’Reilly O’Reilly Media DJ Patil GreyLock Partners Tom Preston-Werner GitHub Bryce Roberts OATV Manish Shah Rap Leaf Steven Spiker Urban Strategies Council Carl Tashian OurGoods Parker Thompson Pivotal Labs

Staff // Jennifer Pahlka // Sheila Bapat // Alissa Black // Jack Madans // Dan Melton // Abhi Nemani // Lauren Reid // Meghan Reilly // Ryan Resella // Bob Sofman //

consultants // Caspian Productions // Christian Smith-Socaris //

ANNUALREPORT

028

THE BUDGET EXPENSES $2,425,157

Program Administration

$519,355

Fundraising

$59,049

TOTAL EXPENSES

$3,003,561

REVENUES DONATIONS & GRANTS 2011 Grants 2011 Donations

PROGRAM FEES & Other $966,000 $348,616

In-Kind Donations

$170,009

Carryover from 2010

$691,230

TOTAL: DONATIONS/Grants

$2,175,855

Government Program Fees Interest Income

$785,297 $561

TOTAL: PROGRAM & INTEREST

$785,858

TOTAL Revenues

$2,961,713

REVENUE TOWARDS FUTURE PROGRAMS Donations & Grants Raised in 2011 for 2012-2013 Programs*

$1,955,000 As of 11/30/2011

NOTES * In 2011, Code for America received additional multi-year grants and donations for 2012-2013 programs.

Projected expenses for future programs are estimated and subject to change.

ANNUALREPORT

R A PR OG

M

:8

1%

:1 IS TR A

D

M

IN

:2 % A

D FUN

R

A

IS ING

TI ON

7%

029

2011

2011 ExPENSEs

GRANTS: 41%

PROGRAM FEES: 35%

DONATIONS: 24%

2011 REVeNUE

2012-2013 PROJECTED EXPENSES

CURRENT REVENUE

2012-2013 Current REVENUE (1.9M) & 2012-2013 PRojected EXPENSES (6M)

THE FELLOWSHIP 8 CITIES. 26 FELLOWS. CODE FOR AMERICA “DIY” BUILDING THE CORPS. STARTUP INCUBATOR LAUNCHING COMPANIES.

2012

SCALING OUR IMPACT IN A BIG WAY.

“PROBABLY MORE THAN ANYTHING, WHAT EXCITES ME ABOUT CODE FOR AMERICA IS THE COMMUNITY.” - JOHN TOLVA CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER CITY OF CHICAGO

A COMPETITIVE CLASS: THE 2012 FELLOWS More than 550 people applied for the 2012 Fellowship, for just 26 spots, making this class even more competitive than the last (which had an acceptance rate under 5.5 pecent).

Some are leaving Google, Apple, and Microsoft; others moving across the country; all passionate, all capable...

And willing to step up.

// 2012 CITY PARTNERS: Austin, Chicago, Detroit, Honolulu, Macon, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Santa Cruz

WHAT’S AHEAD This year, we learned that the fellowship is a powerful tool for bringing innovation into government, so we’ll be expanding the program with more cities and more fellows.

We also realize that the fellowship is just one tool to realize the change we seek, so next year we will be working from the outside as well, tapping into the energy in local community groups and leveraging the disruptive potential of entrepreneurs.

Evolving Fellowship: In 2012, we’ll put 26 fellows in eight cities, a big jump from our pilot year. We’re also institutionalizing the experimental, test-driven culture that led to many of our successes this year and applying the lessons learned to make a better fellowship. We’re looking forward not only to great new apps and stories of innovation, but to reuse of the 2011 apps by our new city partners and others.

CODE FOR AMERICA “DIY”: Thousands of citizens across the country want to “code for America” and bring the changes they see around them to their city. In 2012, we’ll roll out an online platform to connect civic hackers and others with each other locally, and to reuse and remix civic apps in their cities.

Civic Startup Incubator: Disruptive technology in the hands of entrepreneurs can change the world. It’s time it changed government. A seed accelerator will foster sustainable businesses that can become the next generation of government vendors.

Together, these programs will enable Code for America to build a long-term movement to put local governments back on the technology curve and become more connected, participatory, and lean. Please join us in these efforts in 2012.

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1 YEAR. 3 CITIES. 19 FELLOWS. 21 APPLICATIONS. 72 OPEN DATASETS. 81 CIVIC HACKATHONS. 134 GITHUB PROJECTS. 530 LOCAL CONTACTS. 12828 CODE COMMITS. codeforamerica.org info@codeforamerica | @codeforamerica